these were the lies left untold
by thewindwarns
Summary: Five conversations Sally Draper never had. AU, skips around chronologically. Originally written in March 2013.


Title: these were the lies left untold  
Fandom: Mad Men  
WordCount: 804 words  
Characters: Sally-centric, Megan, Joan, Betty, Peggy, and Anna  
Prompt: mad men, any/all of the women, _you want a better story? who wouldn't?_  
Summary/Notes: Five conversations Sally Draper never had. AU, skips around chronologically. Super rusty, so sorry for the OOC-ness! Originally posted here for the multi-fandom women comment ficathon in March 2013. References to all five seasons, but no major spoilers.

_i._

She gives up dancing, tired of the pirouettes and the tutus and the ballet shoes, and takes up acting instead.

Megan walks her through her lines, correcting her tone and her posture, always reminding her gently of what to do and just how to do it. It's almost dinner time, and she can't help but question whether Megan's tired of all this, of her, when she finally puts her script down.

"…Do you think I'll ever be on Broadway too?"

There's a pause as Megan sips on her drink, and she finds herself worrying about the reply before it's even begun.

"It's not easy, Sally – but let's keep practicing, alright?" (She's learned enough from today's lessons to understand the meaning behind the evenness of those words.)

_ii._

They put her in a different office this time, and she sits there, waiting to see if Joan will ask her to stop swinging her legs, to stop rapping her fingers against the table.

Joan does neither; the woman in the bright red dress just gives her a long look before reaching for a neatly piled stack tucked away in a drawer underneath her desk. "Your father told me you like to watch TV. How about you read some of these with me and tell me what you think?"

There are already marks on these papers, words in the margins in flowing script, but she finds her best pen anyway. Sometimes Joan reads the lines in funny voices, and she laughs, reminded of the bedtime stories Grandpa Gene used to read to her.

They go out for sandwiches later, just the two of them, and when they're in the elevator, she finally asks what she's been wondering this entire time. "Who gave you that necklace? Was it a boy?"

"Sweetheart, if you do your job right, you'll be able to buy this necklace on your own." (She thinks about that, how Joan looked sad for just a moment, even on her way home.)

_iii._

The letters are heavy in her hands, and she sighs.

Her mother rises from her chair, leaning over to kiss her gently on the forehead before leaving the room, as if to say, "_it is your choice_".

It has been years since her mother has done that, and she does not know what to make of it.

She waits until the next day, when the family is sitting together for dinner, to announce which college she has decided to attend.

(Her mother smiles brightly at her, and her heart lightens at the thought.)

_vi._

She's not sure what to say, as the youngest at this party, not while her father is talking to Uncle Bert on the other side of the room, and so she takes a long sip of her lemonade instead.

"Do you miss him? When you're not in Manhattan?"

She doesn't realize at first that the other woman is talking to her, a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. (She knows which one, too; her mother's had her make it.) She wonders briefly why she's here - it's supposed to be a company affair after all – but answers anyway. "Yes. But sometimes when I come down to visit, he's still too busy for me."

Peggy laughs. "Let me tell you something. I had lunch with your father the other day, after we both pitched an ad, and he wouldn't stop talking about you."

"Really?"

"Yes. Said you gave him the inspiration for the commercial in the first place. Who knows – maybe you'll even get to be in it. You've got that look about you."

(Sally doesn't care if it's the alcohol talking, because she's seen the way the others say too much at these types of things, but she can't help smiling for the rest of the night, even after Uncle Roger asks her to be his best girl again.)

_v._

She likes this place, even if Bobby doesn't. He's outside with her dad, painting the house and the fence, and she's inside baking cookies and pies and other warm things.

She asks if she's a good helper, because that's what Carla says.

"You're a fine girl, Sally Draper, pretty and smart and the best helper I've ever had. Now, come here. Why don't you show me what you remember from yesterday while we wait for the food to cool?" Aunt Anna sits on the bench, and she leaps from her chair to take a seat next to her.

(She never becomes a prodigy, but she knows just enough on the piano to impress the right people at the right parties.)


End file.
